Pine Crest School Asks Ibm For 30 Acres In Boca

May 2, 1996|By SCOTT GOLD Staff Writer

BOCA RATON - — Pine Crest School has asked IBM Corp. to donate 30 acres of Big Blue's valuable campus for a $7.5 million high school that could eventually house as many as 1,000 students - as well as be a showcase for IBM technology.

Pine Crest plans to build the high school elsewhere in south Palm Beach County if its negotiations with IBM fail, said DeHaven Fleming, headmaster of the school's Boca Raton campus.

"But right now, we're not actively doing anything but working on the proposal with IBM," he said.

Pine Crest's is the first concrete pitch that's been made - in public, anyway - for any portion of the 565-acre IBM property. The site is expected to sell for more than $100 million.

But some area business leaders think the land should be reserved for industry, and IBM said on Tuesday it will exhaust all efforts to fill the sprawling campus with a single company before parceling off pieces for smaller developments.

"We get, as you can imagine, so many inquiries," said company spokeswoman Patricia Armstrong. "We have no plans to deviate from our current plans to market the property."

Pine Crest has filed no formal plans at City Hall, but last month, William J. McMillan, Pine Crest's president emeritus, wrote to Louis Gerstner Jr., IBM's chief executive officer, and asked him for the land.

In return for what some city officials say would be an outrageous act of generosity - 30 acres of the IBM property is worth more than $5 million - IBM would receive an international marketing showcase, McMillan said in his letter.